'Coco' leads over quiet weekend

There were no new wide releases to mix things up this weekend, leaving last weekend’s top five—Coco (weekend gross $26.1 million, total gross $108.6 million), Justice League ($16.5 million, total gross $197.3 million), Wonder (weekend gross $12.5 million, total gross $88 million), Thor: Ragnarok (weekend gross $9.6 million, total gross $291.4 million) and Daddy’s Home 2 (weekend gross $7.5 million, total gross $82.8 million)—to cool their heels in the same positions they held last week. Looking internationally, Coco opened in France, Belgium and Spain and topped the $75 million mark in China, making it the highest-grossing Pixar film ever in that country.

As awards season trundles on, studios continue to roll out their Oscar hopefuls in specialty release. Lady Bird upped its theatre count by 403, bringing its weekend cume to $1.4 million (total gross $4.5 million). Fellow A24 release The Disaster Artist opened to $1.2 million on 19 screens, putting it just outside of the top ten; the film will expand to approximately 800 theatres next weekend.

The weekend’s highest per-theatre average belonged to Fox Searchlight’s The Shape of Water, which bowed to $166,800 on a pair of screens. That is the highest per-theatre average of director Guillermo del Toro's career. Searchlight’s Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri upped its theatre count from 614 to 1,430; its $4.5 million weekend gross brings its total to-date to $13.6 million.

Paramount put James Cameron’s Titanic ($415,000) in 87 theatres to celebrate the film’s 20th anniversary. New to theatres in specialty release were Woody Allen’s Wonder Wheel ($140,555), Aki Kaurismäki’s The Other Side of Hope ($17,052), Big Time ($7,571), Another WolfCop ($5,900) and Kepler’s Dream ($1,390).